As you continue to write, do you notice any other opportunities to return to Montgomery for inspiration?
From a technical standpoint, I continue to look at her writing as inspiration for writing description (most recently, I've been studying how she writes sunsets) but her overall work and her thoughts as an author also inspire me.
A lot of children's/young adult books these days are "dark" and many feel as if that gives them more weight and seriousness. So every once and a while, I'll worry if my work is not dark enough. But then I will think of the Anne books and Montgomery herself, who (in response to reviews of her work) wrote, "..one which sneered at my ‘sentiment.’ The attitude of some English critics towards anything that savors of sentiment amuses me. It is to them as the proverbial red rag to a bull. They are very silly. Can’t they see that civilization is founded on and held together by sentiment? Passion is transient and quite as often destructive as not. Sentiment remains and binds."
And I will remember that a book with a true heart is the one most worth writing.
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*Lucy Maud Montgomery is such a favorite author of mine we were considering naming Rain Dragon Maud. Then, we realized that with my last name, she would be Maud Lin....maudlin...we'd have to have her room Edward Gorey-themed...